Explore the fens

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One of Europe's most important wetlands and England's most famous Fen which supports an abundance of wildlife. There are more than 9,000 species, including a spectacular array of plants, birds and dragonflies.

The Great Fen, a 50-year project to create a huge wetland area. One of the largest restoration projects of its type in Europe, the landscape of the fens between Peterborough and Huntingdon is being transformed for the benefit both of wildlife and of people.

An area of arable farmland into a large wetland, consisting mainly of reedbeds and grazing marshes. The new reedbeds have attracted hundreds of pairs of reed warblers and sedge warblers, as well as bearded tits and marsh harriers.

Welney, in Norfolk, takes in 1,000 acres of the northernmost part of the Ouse Washes – Britain’s largest area of seasonally-flooded land and the setting for one of the most magical events in the UK’s nature calendar - mass winter gatherings of many thousands of wild ducks, geese and swans.

Flag Fen, east of Peterborough, England, is a Bronze Age site developed about 3500 years ago, comprising over 60,000 timbers, arranged in five very long rows, creating a wooden causeway across the wet fenland.

A Benedictine Abbey that was founded by St Aethelwold in 972. Large stone buildings were constructed, similar to those at the nearby abbeys at Peterborough, Crowland, Ely and Ramsey. The large Norman church, built from 1080, contained the relics of important saints such as St Botolph (brought from Boston) and these attracted visitors and their donations.

Founded in 1159 as a Benedictine monastery, it then became a retirement home for elderly Knights Templars. After the Templars’ suppression for alleged heresy in 1308, it became a convent of Franciscan nuns before becoming a farm from 1539 and the dissolution of the monasteries, until the 1960s.